Hebrews 4:12

0:00 One of the most beautiful things that I've ever seen was actually a YouTube video. And I know the first thing that comes to your mind is double rainbow all the way across the sky. That is not what I'm referring to. Or the hamster videos, you know, with the hamsters crawling through that they show in Gospel Project. What I'm referring to is a video of a tribe in Indonesia receiving a Bible translated into their language for the first time. So there's this video of the Kimyal people in Indonesia and the plane flying in and landing with these Bibles for the first time translated into these people's heart language.

0:44 In it, they interview the pastor of the church there, and he says, In the past, only part of the Bible was translated into our language, and part of it was not. So when someone came to teach us, if we had that portion in our language, we would read it and understand. But when they taught us from a scripture we didn't have translated, our hearts would be heavy. But now we will have it from Genesis to Revelation. Our hearts are no longer heavy. They are light. The crew then films as these Bibles are dispersed among these people who are celebrating, clapping, singing, crying tears of joy.

1:23 And it's just a wonderful, beautiful sight. It really is a remarkable scene of celebration. What is it about the Bible that elicits such joy in people? What is it about God's word that would cause someone to spend thousands of hours to translate it into a language that, you know, around a thousand people are going to read? Our verse tonight, I think, helps us to understand and answer those questions by giving us insight into the nature of the Bible, to the nature of God's word.

2:02 So let's read that verse together. It's on the front of your bulletin. It's Hebrews 4.12. For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. What we're going to see from this passage tonight is this. The Bible is God speaking to us, and it's meant to change us. The Bible is God speaking to us, and it's meant to change us.

2:35 So first, let's look at the first section there. The Bible is God speaking to us. We have to start with an understanding that the God of the universe, The God who created all things with his word. He wants us to know him. And how does that happen? We can think about the Old Testament. God spoke to Adam and Eve in the garden. Well, after sin came into the world, God spoke through prophets. He spoke through prophets and would reveal himself to his people.

3:09 Well, Hebrews 1-2 says, in these last days, he has spoken to us through his son. He's spoken to us through his son. So we can think about the book of John, how in John 1, John says that Jesus reveals God to us. He explains God to us. If we want to know who God is, we look to Jesus. We look at Jesus. He is the image of God who explains him to us. But the question is, how do we know who Jesus is? We know who Jesus is by reading God's word, by reading the Bible.

3:46 All right? And so, if we want to know who Jesus is, we look at God's word. So the Bible is God's self-revelation. It's God's self-revelation of who he is, and that's why it is living and active. So let's think about those words for a minute, living and active. Why is the Bible living? Well, it's living because the God who speaks through the Bible is alive.

4:20 All truth, in so much as it is truth, is only true because we know what truth is from God's word. So there are lots of books that teach truth and contain truth. But every other story is only alive. every other book is only true in so much as it illuminates the truth that we know are true from God's word and so God's word is truly alive because the God who speaks it is alive it's also active and how is it active well just think about this when God speaks things happen God spoke the world into existence. God said, let there be light, and there was light. The Holy Spirit works through God's word, and he accomplishes things and does things through God's word. So what does that mean for us? It means we should do whatever we can to expose ourselves to God's word. Think about for

5:22 for a minute. The God of the universe, the God who created all things, he's revealing, he's revealed himself, who he is to us. We don't need to go on a pilgrimage to find ourselves. God has told us who we are, and God has told us who he is, and we find that in his word. So we should read it, we should memorize it. We should listen to it. We should pray it. We should discuss it. We should come to church and hear it. We should wake up that extra hour on Sunday mornings and come to Sam Crosby's class and hear it explained and learn how to understand it. We should make it a priority to know God's Word. It is not like any other book. It is alive. It's active because the God behind it is alive

6:23 and active. We should also meditate on God's Word. This gets into the next point, but I want to take a minute to encourage you. When you read God's Word, take a minute to try to understand what it means and apply that to your life. Make it a practice in your Bible reading that when you step away from reading the Bible, that an hour later you can remember what you read. And we do that through meditating. We do that through taking time to consider what we have read.

7:02 Another practical thing that we can do is, again, this is God's Word. This is not just any other book. So another practical thing we can do before reading God's Word or before coming to church to hear God's Word preached is we can pray and ask God to help us to understand it, to apply it to our hearts. So I like John Piper's. He has an I-O-U-S. You don't have to write this down. You can Google it afterwards if you want it, but it is, I, incline my heart to your testimonies, from Psalm 119, 36.

7:39 O, open my eyes to see wonderful things from your word, Psalm 119, 18. U, unite my heart to fear your name, Psalm 86, 11. And S, satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, Psalm 90, 14. Again, it doesn't have to be that, but the idea is when we come to God's word, when we come to hear it here, when we come to read it in the morning or in the afternoon or in the evening, when we come to do those things, we come to it realizing this is the God of the universe speaking to me.

8:17 I love Harry Potter. I love Lord of the Rings. I love Wingfeather. I love all these books. But they are not the God of the universe speaking to me, revealing himself to me. So when we read God's word, we should read it with that in mind. We should read it, applying it in that way. So the Bible is God speaking to us. Second, the Bible is meant to change us. It is meant to change us.

8:47 And why is that? Because we are not God. We are fallen, sinful creatures. And so when God speaks to us, it changes us. It changes us because we don't know everything. We don't know how to do everything right. We're never going to do all the things that we should do. So I once heard this illustration that there was a pastor late to church. And he came in and he walks up to the pulpit.

9:20 He's standing behind the pulpit and he says, I'm sorry, but I was walking from the parking lot and I was walking into church and I got hit by an 18-wheeler run over walking into this church. And the people on the front pew are looking at him. They're like, his suit looks good. His hair is perfect. There's no tears in his clothes. There's no marks on his face from the tires. It doesn't make any sense. how are you you didn't get hit by a truck and the pastor says yeah i didn't get hit by a truck you're right if i had gotten a truck you there would have been a noticeable impact on me right if something that big happened to me but then he said yet many times we can come to god's word or have a relationship with god and think that it should have no noticeable impact on us no change on us whatsoever. We, when we come to hear God's word, when we read God's word for ourselves, we are

10:27 hearing from the God who created all things. It should change us. And that's what the text is talking about here when it says, God's word is like a two-edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts of the heart. I think it's all, this thing here is all just kind of one idea together. And the idea is this. God's word cuts straight through our hearts. Straight through to our hearts. It does not discriminate. There is no armor that you can put on. There's no sidestepping that you can do. There's nothing that you can do that makes the word of God not apply to you. The truth from God's word not apply to you. It is true. So for the children here, for the youth here, for the college students here, for the young adults here, for the middle-aged people here like me. I think I'm middle-aged now. For the

11:33 retirees, for the retirees who aren't retired, for everybody here. God's word is true for all of us the same. It's true for all of us the same. None of us can resist the word of God. And by resist, I mean it is true whether or not we accept it to be true. it is true there's a story in george whitfield's biography about uh this it's called the hellfire club and the hellfire club george whitfield was a preacher in the 1700s and he you know would draw large crowds of people and there was this club and they kind of just mocked whitfield they they They just made fun of him.

12:29 There was one guy in it, and his name was Thorpe. And Thorpe was something of a, I don't know, he might be on Saturday Night Live or something now, because he was an impersonator of George Whitefield. So he would go to listen to George Whitefield preach, and he would learn Whitefield's mannerisms. Apparently, Whitefield was, like, slightly cross-eyed, and he would even, like, do the eye thing. So he took it to the furthest extent where he was trying to copy all of the way Whitefield acted.

13:00 And he would do this impersonation for this hellfire club of group of individuals. And one day they were all together and they said, do your Whitefield for us. So Thorpe picked up a Bible and he turned to a passage that said, Except you repent, you shall all likewise perish. And as he was impersonating Whitefield, preaching a sermon, making fun of Whitefield, the Lord convicted him and saved him as he was doing that.

13:35 Now, God's word cannot be mocked. There is no armor, there is nothing that we can do to avoid God's word. it is powerful, and it cuts straight to the heart. So if you're not a Christian and you're here tonight, this applies to you just as much as it applies to those of us who are Christians. The reality is, is that the Bible teaches that we are all sinners. All of us. We've all fallen and short of God's glory. None of us, on our own merit, can be made right before a God. None of us.

14:21 The only way that we can come to know God is through a substitute, through someone standing for us. And God, while we were still sinners, sent his son to die on the cross for our sins. Jesus died on the cross. He was buried. Three days later, God rose him from the dead. He took our sin upon himself that we might receive his righteousness and that's true that is true so if you're not a christian i would implore you to put your trust in jesus to save you put your trust in jesus to save you if you are a christian i think a good question for all of us is when was the last time that God's word changed us?

15:08 When was the last time that God's word changed us? Are you resting on a change that happened years ago when you were spiritually on fire? Or are you seeking the Lord to change you through his word day by day and his spirit now? It's important to remember this passage here is in the context of a warning. The author of Hebrews is warning the church here that they would not ignore God's word like the Israelites had done before. And I think that same warning is applicable for us, that we would not ignore God's word, that we would not allow it to become complacent in our hearts that we would not view it as just something else that we have to do but that we would see it as God the God of the universe revealing himself to us

16:12 if that seems a bit under overwhelming I think a good practice is this take a little bit of scripture and put attach it to a little bit of life a little bit of scripture and attach it to a little bit of life when you hear a sermon on Sunday morning you take a little bit of scripture a part of scripture from that sermon and you figure out something from your life and you put them together and you keep it simple and you keep doing that for your life for your whole life and you'll be amazed what God will do through that we are all complicated people we do not change at once it takes time but if we make that a practice then uh it would the lord will work through that on the positive side of this though right it is a warning but on the positive side if you are struggling with sin god's word pierces through that sin let that happen let that happen

17:18 let that happen through applying it to your own heart let that happen through telling uh confessing that sin and allowing someone else to help it to help you through that you're struggling with doubt god's word can penetrate that doubt it's not not there's no promise that that's going to happen right away but we understand god's word is powerful it can work in our lives there is nothing in our life that his word cannot or doesn't affect so god is speaking to us through his word and that ought to change us let's pray father we thank you so much for your word i just pray this week would you open up our eyes to see wonderful things from your word. And would you help it to bear fruit in our hearts? We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.